Disaster preparedness and security management in two academic libraries in South-West Nigeria

Abstract

Collections in academic libraries are threatened not just by disaster, but also by security risks. A survey was conducted to investigate disaster preparedness and security management in two academic libraries in South-West, Nigeria. The population was 169 staff of the Polytechnic Library at The Polytechnic, Ibadan and Kenneth Dike Library, University of Ibadan. Census method was used to include the entire population comprising professional and para professional librarians, and support staff. A self-developed, structured questionnaire with four-points Likert scales was used for data collection. Data was analyzed with descriptive statistics. Findings showed that hacking was a major security threat to the academic libraries, particularly those with e-libraries. Fire disaster was also found to be among the major disaster threatening the academic libraries. The grand mean was 3.1 with a standard deviation of 0.83 suggesting that, overall disaster preparedness and security management in the two academic libraries in south west Nigeria understudied is in the affirmative. Academic libraries should have disaster response teams that would respond to disasters is among the recommendation.